Mortuary Archaeology of the Râmeț Bronze Age Landscape

Human skeletal remains

The MARBAL team has just arrived in Alba Iulia to spend three weeks conduct ing preliminary collections research at the Muzeul Național al Unirii din Alba Iulia. So far project activities have included: recovering from jet lag,

eating the finest spicy pizza Alba Iulia has to offer,

admiring the skeletally-themed local street art,

and gawking out of the window to our museum lab.

However, we’re here to do more than just sightsee and eat pizza. Emilie Cobb and I are conducting a bioarchaeological analysis of Early Bronze Age human remains from three local Bronze Age sites.

Dr. Ciugudean is spending most of his time in the field, taking part in several archaeological excavations along the Mures valley. The site inBărăbanț, near Alba, has just delivered some well-preserved Early Bronze Age skeletons, which have just been transported to our lab for analysis.

Copyright MARBAL Project 2017.

Project member Colin Quinn is busy finishing up some ceramic analysis from his Bronze Age Transylvania Survey project, and is also helping to unpack the mortuary archaeology of the Meteș and Hapria sites by analyzing maps and site reports.

Our days so far have been spent in Dr. Ciugudean’s lab at the museum, inventorying skeletal remains, sorting out the pesky non-humans, and realizing how much equipment we forgot to buy the previous day. In the center photo below, I’m also sketching in the different shapes of upper and lower molars for Emilie, in case the shoddy geometry was confusing to any readers.

Which reminds me – I need to go buy my Nescafe, lest I collapse, decaffeinated, over a tray of bones tomorrow. Look for our next update from Emilie Cobb, coming soon!

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